VLC for Mobile
4+

Screenshots

Description

VLC for iOS is a port of the free VLC media player to iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.\nIt can play all your movies, shows and music in most formats directly without conversion.It allows file synchronization with Dropbox, GDrive, OneDrive, Box, iCloud Drive, iTunes, direct downloads and through WiFi sharing as well as streaming from SMB, FTP, UPnP/DLNA media servers and the web.VLC offers support for advanced subtitles including full SSA compatibility, multi-track audio, and playback speed control.

Ratings and Reviews

Almost as good as it used to be...

...but not quite. A few months ago there was a VLC update that made your users go ballistic. Lucky for me I noticed this before updating and decided install VLC on my iPhone to monitor the app’s rehabilitation while continuing to use the non-screwed-up version on my iPad, where my video library lives. At the time, for me, the dealbreaker was that thumbnails were no longer using whatever frame a given video had stopped on (I like being able to choose my own thumbnail). I just noticed on my phone that at some point this important feature was restored. Great! HOWEVER... what is the need for empty space between thumbnails? And moreover, what is the need for placing the title below instead of upon the thumbnails? Both of these design choices decrease how large they can be and how many can seen onscreen at once. When I compare the library interface of the current version on my iPhone to the non-updated version on my iPad (v3.1.9) I much prefer the old view with them all packed together. Please make this an option in the settings so I can update VLC on my iPad. I’ll continue to monitor the app’s progress on my phone and when it is finally satisfactory again I will upgrade and give VLC the five stars I wish it deserved.

Developer Response
,

Thanks for your detailed feedback!The iPad keyboard is on our list, especially for those basic playback controls.An iPhone based remote makes sense indeed, but is a bit more complex to do. It is on our list for the long run, but will not be worked on immediately.

Library management will be greatly improved later this year by a complete rewrite of the current user interface.

To leave a movie to go back to the library during playback, don't swipe down, but use the pinch gesture.

Aspergers9000
, 05/19/2020

good app, but I can’t add to or edit my playlists

I’m a big fan of VLC, having used it as my main media playback software for over half my life at this point. It’s definitely the best free option for anyone, and the team behind it are trustworthy and open in a way most software developers aren’t.

That said, it’s incredibly annoying to me to be unable to actually add to or edit audio playlists. I have two playlists on my VLC app, one stuck at three tracks and the other stuck at one track. When I try to add tracks to to playlists, the pop-up screen appears but doesn’t allow me to actually add a track to either playlist, and I’d rather not just have to make a new playlist every time I want to add a track to it.

I primarily use VLC for listening to my own music, mostly music I’ve produced on my iPhone, and being able to create playlists of my music to experiment with track arrangement for an album while I’m on-the-go would be a massive plus. VLC is the only audio player available to me on iPhone that doesn’t automatically compress and downsample my .wav recordings, so it’s absolutely my go-to for listening to music. I just wish the UI worked properly, but I’m hoping the promised UI overhaul from the developers will fix this.

Overall, happy with the app and wouldn’t use anything else, but the small few issues I’ve had with it are irritating and disruptive enough to my user experience that it does impact me.

Developer Response
,

Thanks a lot for your review. The playlist bug is very annoying and fixed for the next update.

soonergrrrl
, 09/23/2019

Version 3.2.0 ruined it

Update: my previous issue was resolved, but unfortunately, I really REALLY wish I could revert back to before I updated to this latest version (3.2.0). Now, TV shows are no longer grouped together, and my video tab just looks like a huge mess! It seems like in this update you spent too much time focusing on how the music part works, especially for a VIDEO player. I never really understood why there was a music option anyway to be honest. I don't like the new playlist system because as someone else said, the main screen is still wicked cluttered. Also, when I tried to just put a tv show into its own playlist, they are all kinds of out of order and no way to organize them. BOO. This does not feel like an update, but a way to turn the video player into a music player. So now I have no way to get files off the main screen, no way to group episodes of a tv show together, and I have to hunt and hunt through all these video files to find what I'm looking for, but boy...that empty music section sure looks fancy.

Now the app no longer responds to my touch. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling but to no avail. I don't know how to use an app on a touch device that doesn't respond to touch. It is useless now. Too bad because it was the reigning champ of video players for so long...